Discipleship and the Priesthood of all Believers

Nowadays, we hear a lot about Christians being called to discipleship. And rightly so! The Great Commission recorded in the gospels sees our risen, triumphant Lord telling us to go and make disciples of the world. While we are still image-bearers of God, our images have been tainted by the pervasive effects of sin. We are dim reflections of the kings and queens we used to be (Gen. 1:26-28). There is a dyer need for our images to be transformed and renewed in accordance with the perfect, prototypical Image - the same Image through which the Father created the world - Jesus Christ, the beloved Son. Our call to be disciples of Christ means we wholeheartedly submit to his authority as Lord of the universe, we realize we are being consecrated to a life devoted to holiness, we proclaim the message of the gospel to others, we teach them all the Lord commanded, we defend the truth when we are called to, and we offer up praise each day for all that God has done and will continue to do.

The point of my post today is to draw a link between the ideas of discipleship and the priesthood of all believers. Consider with me for a moment the remarkable similarities between this idea of discipleship and this Old Testament idea of priesthood. For example, check out some of these points I have listed below:

1. Priests are consecrated to a life of holy living - this is the original intent from the beginning. While Adam may not seem like your typical "priest," I believe as the first man on the earth, his calling does not differ so much from our own. He was called to a life of obedience and submission to the precepts of the Lord. This idea is explicitly unraveled later in Exodus when God calls his people to "be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." (Leviticus 19:2). And while the priestly tribe of Levi is set apart within the theocracy of Israel, God calls the entire nation of Israel to be a kingdom of priests (Ex. 19:6). Peter would later say in his first letter that believers are called to be a holy and royal priesthood that should abstain from the passions of the flesh and move on to honorable living that glorifies God in the sight of others (1 Pet. 2:9, 11-12).
2. Priests are protectors of the sanctity of the Temple and the truth it embodies - again, this was Adam's original calling, but instead of a temple, Adam was to protect the sanctity of the Garden sanctuary. Eden was a sanctuary where God met with man, not to forgive sins, but to commune with his creation. It was Adam's job to "keep and cultivate" the garden. This does not mean that Adam was a gardener. To keep and cultivate in the Hebrew meant that he was to watch over the garden, to preserve it, and to serve or "minister" within it. This was the role of the temple priest - to keep (Num. 3:38, 4:16) and minister (e.g., Ex. 29:38-42). And we too, as a royal priesthood, are to be protectors of the sanctity of our bodily temples (1 Cor. 6:19-20), our physical gathering place of worship (1 Cor. 5:4, 13), and the foundational truths forming the cornerstone of the church (1 Pet. 3:15, Jude 1:3).
3. Priests proclaim the excellencies of Christ, acting as a mediator between God and an unbelieving world - going back to Adam, implied within the mandate to "be fruitful and multiply" was to propagate the message of the lordship of the Creator and Sustainer of life as king of the ever-expanding garden sanctuary, so that all born of Adam and Eve would call upon the name of the Lord. Later, within the community of Israel, the priests were to both teach Israel of God's precepts (Lev. 10:11) and to act as mediators for them (Lev. 23). Again, Peter tells us that as a priesthood of believers, we are to tell the world of God's lavished grace in Christ as he calls people to himself (1 Pet. 2:9-10).
4. Priests offer sacrifices to God - while Adam did not offer sacrifice originally because of the absence of sin, he surely offered up thanksgiving and praise to the one true God of the universe. This was markedly different than the Israelite priests, who did in fact offer physical sacrifices for the sins of the people (Lev. 23). This sacrificial system points forward to the ultimate offering of the blessed Lamb, who shed his blood for our sins once for all time at the altar of Calvary. And this is why our sacrifice as a priesthood of believers is very different than it looked during the OT - Peter again says that we are "to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5). This means that through the definitive work of Christ on the cross, we now continually offer up a kind of "spiritual sacrifice" of praise that acknowledges him as the suffering substitute that atoned for our sin (Heb. 13:15).

Certainly there are some differences between priesthood and discipleship when we begin to look more closely, but I do believe there are striking similarities that are very interesting to consider, as we continue to dwell on God's overarching plan for us throughout the storyline of Scripture. Hopefully this was helpful and edifying to those handful of readers I have that stop by here sometimes!

SDG